6 best social media marketing tools in 2025
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Social media is indispensable for business, marketing, and branding. A lot of businesses today supplement their digital marketing strategy with social media marketing tools.
To schedule Instagram posts, analyze TikTok performance, or manage Facebook ad campaigns, you need these digital marketing tools to save time and keep your audience hooked.
Today, there are numerous tools on the market that help you with your social media strategy. As emerging platforms like Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky find their place among established giants, I believe it's crucial to not fall behind trends, while staying ahead of your competition.
With the help of the Cybernews team, I’ve researched six top social media marketing tools including Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Buffer, that can act as your loyal marketing assistants.
By the end of my guide, you’ll have a clear idea of which social media management tool is right for your business. Here are the six best tools for 2025.
Top 6 social media marketing tools – shortlist
- Sprout Social – for advanced data-driven insights
- Hootsuite – for real-time social monitoring and responding
- Buffer – for optimized post-scheduling times
- Canva – for simple social media scheduling
- Later – for visual Instagram planning
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The best social media marketing tools compared
In the table below I’ve laid out essential information about my six chosen social media marketing tools. I’ll show what each tool is best for, its standout features, free trial availability, and pricing.
| Provider | Best for | Standout feature | Free trial | Pricing |
| Sprout Social | Enterprise social management | Advanced AI and social listening | Yes (30 days) | From $249 per seat/month |
| Hootsuite | Analytics-driven social media strategy | Competitive benchmarking tool | Yes (30 days) | From $99 per seat/month |
| Buffer | Simplified scheduling for small teams | Intuitive queue system and AI assistant | Yes (14 days) | From $6/month |
| Canva | Design-heavy social campaigns | Drag-and-drop design with scheduling tools | Yes | From $15/month |
| Later | Instagram-focused strategies | Visual Instagram planner with “Best Time to Post" | Yes (14 days) | From $25/month |
| Loomly | Collaborative workflows for teams | Workflow templates for team collaboration | Yes (15 days) | From $42/month |
Top social media marketing tools of 2025 – our detailed list
1. Sprout Social – best overall social media marketing tool
| Starting price: | From $249 per seat/month |
| Free trial: | Yes (30 days) |
| Best for: | Enterprise-level social media management |
Sprout Social is a sophisticated social media management platform geared toward businesses. It helps you combine content scheduling, audience engagement, and analytics into one tool.
Key features
Tools like the Smart Inbox stood out for me. This feature centralizes all of your social media messages. With its AI-powered sentiment analysis, you can gauge audience mood and identify emerging trends in conversations about your brand. I especially liked its Optimal Send Times, which recommends the best times to post based on your past engagement data.
Use cases
This tool is ideal for businesses that want to manage multiple social media platforms from one place. It’s fantastic for teams, thanks to a collaborative content calendar and automated workflows. This tool can scale to large enterprises without issue.
Pricing
Plans start at $249 per seat/month for the Standard plan, which includes basics like five social profiles and performance reporting. You’ll need to pay $399 per seat/month for unlimited profiles or advanced analytics.
2. Hootsuite – powerful tool for multi-channel social media management
| Starting price: | From $99/month |
| Free trial: | Yes (30 days) |
| Best for: | Managing multiple social media channels with advanced analytics |
Hootsuite handles all of your social media requirements. It can create and schedule content, analyze performance, and streamline your social media endeavors.
Key features
I found its AI-powered caption generator (tailored to your brand’s tone) and hashtag suggestions quite powerful and useful, simplifying content creation significantly. Also, the integrated social listening tools offer precise insights into brand sentiment and trending topics. Additionally, the Best Time to Post feature helps you optimize your posting schedule for maximum engagement.
Use cases
Hootsuite is for businesses managing multiple social accounts across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. It’s also great for teams that need collaboration tools (assigning tasks and managing approvals). You can also manage paid social ads alongside organic content, with tools to boost top-performing posts automatically.
Pricing
Plans start at $99/month for the Professional plan, which includes 10 social profiles with unlimited post scheduling. The $249/month Team plan features role-based permissions and a branded URL. You can also opt for custom Enterprise plans.
3. Buffer – ideal for solo entrepreneurs and small teams looking to grow
| Starting price: | From $5/month |
| Free trial: | Yes (14 days) |
| Best for: | Smooth scheduling and analytics for smaller teams |
Buffer is a no-frills and affordable social media tool that helps individuals and small businesses grow their social media presence. I liked the intuitive interface, making it easy to engage with an audience across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Key features
I enjoyed Buffer’s AI Assistant since it can refine Instagram Stories and you can plan weeks in advance, while you can tune your posts across several channels. Its visual content calendar is fantastic for keeping track of posts at a glance. Also, the engagement inbox centralizes comments and messages for swift responses.
Use cases
This tool is ideal for solopreneurs and small teams needing a budget-conscious way to deal with content across multiple platforms. You can also use it to analyze post performance and grow engagement without spending hours on manual tasks. Its hashtag management and content scheduling features are perfect for Instagram users.
Pricing
Plans start from $5/month for one channel with unlimited post scheduling (Essential plan). The $10/month Team plan adds unlimited users, access-level permission, and content workflow approvals.
4. Canva – excellent for creative professionals
| Starting price: | From $15/month |
| Free trial: | Yes |
| Best for: | Creative professionals managing social media design and scheduling |
Canva is an extensive design platform. It's perfect for both individuals and small-to-medium teams for designing, collaborating, and analyzing social media content.
Key features
I liked Canva’s Magic Design and Magic Media tools, with which it’s simple to create visually engaging posts, stories, and videos. The platform’s Content Planner lets you seamlessly schedule and publish to Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Also, its Brand Hub (Pro) keeps your fonts, logos, and colors consistent across the designs.
Use cases
If you need professional graphics and short-form social media videos, Canva is perfect. I think it will work well for a team, with real-time collaboration and approval workflows included. Tools like the Magic Eraser and Background Remover (Pro) are great for content marketers. Everyone from freelancers to agencies can use Canva’s social media design platform.
Pricing
Plans start from $15/month (Pro) for advanced tools like Magic Eraser, Brand Hub, and unlimited templates. For Teams, pricing starts at $30/month per user, adding approval workflows and centralized asset management. There’s also an Enterprise tier and Education tiers.
5. Later – great for visual planning and scheduling
| Starting price: | From $25/month |
| Free trial: | Yes (14 days) |
| Best for: | Visual-focused content creators and social media managers |
Later is a social media tool for visual storytellers and brands. I was impressed by the Visual Instagram Planner, which lets you map out your Instagram feed and content strategy with a simple drag-and-drop system. I also liked the Shoppable Instagram galleries.
Key features
I found Later’s Best Time to Post tool to be handy for getting optimal posting times based on audience engagement data. I also liked its Link in Bio feature, which creates a shoppable gallery from your posts.
Use cases
Later is clearly for visual-heavy platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Creators and smaller businesses can use it to schedule posts, manage collaborations, and re-shape user-generated content. It also has team management tools.
Pricing
Plans start from $25/month (Starter) which includes one account per platform and limited analytics. The Advanced plan at $80/month gives you unlimited posting and team collaboration features. If you’re an agency, you can get the $200/month plan for approval workflows. There’s an Enterprise plan with Social Listening.
6. Loomly – good for structured workflows and approvals
| Starting price: | From $42/month |
| Free trial: | Yes (15 days) |
| Best for: | Teams requiring structured workflows and approval processes |
Loomly is a flexible social media management tool to simplify workflows. Its focus is on collaboration, so it works for teams or agencies managing several accounts that need campaign tracking. I liked that Loomly offers daily post inspiration, including unique ideas based on special dates, holidays, or trending topics.
Key features
For me, Loomly shines with multi-level approval workflows, so you can collaborate efficiently. I also liked its content calendar, built-in image and video editor, and labeling features to easily follow campaigns. It even has advanced analytics that shows follower growth and engagement.
Use cases
A tool like Loomly can work for brands managing multiple social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. It's great for teams that want to use pre-built templates for recurring campaigns.
Pricing
Plans start from $42/month for the Base plan, which gets you 10 social accounts, two users, and standard analytics. If you need custom branding and advanced features, opt for Premium at $369/month. Loomly also offers Enterprise solutions.
How did we select these marketing tools for social media?
When selecting these top marketing tools for social media, we ensured that they meet the diverse needs of businesses and individual professionals. My personal criteria focused on these key factors:
- Availability and reliability: Every tool on this list supports a major platform, such as Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, or X (formerly Twitter). This ensures broad usability for you. As for reliability, I prioritized known tools with solid uptime, customer support, user feedback, and platform integrations.
- Cost-effectiveness: Of course, price is key, especially for solopreneurs, startups, and small businesses. So, I thought about the value provided by each tool at different pricing tiers. For instance, did the analytics, collaboration, and AI tools justify the cost? I also factored in free tiers and additional features.
- User experience: A social media tool worth its weight should simplify, not complicate things. So, I focused on interface design, ease of use, and intuitive features like drag-and-drop systems and seamless integrations with major third-party tools.
- Use cases: Each tool should serve distinct user needs. Therefore, I included tools that serve a wide swathe of customers ranging from individuals to large enterprises. I also made sure to include tools that excel at collaboration and workflows and others that are more visually oriented.
- Unique features: Finally, unique features were the icing on the cake. I highly value tools with features like advanced AI, social listening, and deep analytics.
Why use social media marketing tools?
Social media marketing tools are critical for business these days. As of September 2024, U.S. SMB decision-makers indicated that their top four social media platforms for business are: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, respectively.
Without a good social media marketing tool, you are left with manually juggling content schedules, responding to audience queries, and analyzing complex performance data. So, the benefits of social media tools become invaluable.
Social media marketing tools let you streamline your projects through social media automation, so you can schedule posts in advance, and more importantly, maintain a strong brand presence.
These tools also help boost audience engagement by centralizing comments and messages. Some platforms even offer AI-driven insights to recommend top posting times, trending topics, or targeted responses for your audience.
From an ROI perspective, these tools provide you with actionable insights on what’s working and what isn’t, so you can focus on results and improve your social media ROI.
Simply put, social media tools save you a lot of precious time, boost your productivity, and let you conserve energy to focus on running other aspects of your business goals.
Key features to look for in social media marketing tools
After weeks of research, I’ve been able to pinpoint the key features you want when choosing a balanced social media marketing tool for your work. These features are essential for effective social media marketing:
- Social media scheduling: Social media scheduling saves you time while making sure you deliver consistently. Publishing and planning your posts in advance is crucial, so I think this feature is a game-changer.
- Analytics tools: Yet another game-changer is analytics tools. If you track your performance metrics, you’ll understand your audience better, identify trends, and ultimately refine your strategy.
- Collaboration tools: Teams need collaboration tools. These allow for seamless task assignments, post approvals, and content reviews, so you can all work together efficiently without any bottlenecks.
- Social media integrations: Integrations with platforms like Google Drive, Canva, Dropbox, or even Slack can vastly simplify and smooth out your content creation. This kind of integration makes collaboration and management both entertaining and efficient.
- Ad management: Businesses or individual creators often run paid campaigns. This means you need ad management on your chosen platform. With ad management, you can monitor ad performance, optimize your budget, and produce a strong ROI.
You may not find all of these features in all social media marketing software. However, you’re already on your way to a successful social media marketing campaign if you choose software that combines a few of these key features.
How to choose the right tool for your needs
It’s very important that your chosen tool aligns as closely as possible with your business’s size, budget, and end goal. The most budget-friendly tool may produce the best results in your case, not the most expensive one. However, the transition from free social media tools to paid ones is natural as you scale up and your business grows.
For a small business, free social media tools like Buffer’s free tier or Canva’s design features are excellent starting points, because they can handle basic tasks like scheduling and display simple (but handy) analytics. The best tools for small businesses should also have a user-friendly interface.
If you’re going a step further, paid tiers typically offer in-depth analytics, collaboration functions, or ad management. If your business has a larger team, then you will benefit from platforms like Sprout Social or Hootsuite, my first and second-place picks in this guide.
My advice to you is that, when choosing social media tools, you should consider your goals first and foremost. If you’re after content creation, Canva or Loomly should do the job. If you’re focused on engagement or social listening, then you need a different platform that offers sentiment analysis or engagement inboxes.
Tips for maximizing social media marketing tools
As someone who’s reviewed a lot of the latest software on the market, I know a thing or two about social media engagement strategies. As such, let me share what worked for me.
First, to optimize social media tools, you should automate what is repetitive in your social media campaigns. Spending all day scheduling Instagram posts or trying to figure out when to post is tiring. So, use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to make scheduling easy, even when you’re offline.
Then, focus on performance analytics, which are there to show you why certain approaches work. Platforms such as Sprout Social give you this data, and more, to adjust your strategy. I’ve found that slightly shifting post timing or changing content formats can make quite a difference.
Furthermore, don’t forget your audience. People always prefer real responses, so tools with unified inboxes or social listening features make that human connection and show them you’re listening.
Finally, try new things. For instance, test short videos, polls, or carousels to see what clicks with your audience. Some platforms can even recommend the best times to post to maximize your reach.
Other marketing tools you might be interested in
Conclusion
Since the early 2010s, social media has gained momentum in the business world. Since then, social media tools have become critical for driving ROI and profits.
Whether you’re managing a small brand or a vast enterprise-level operation, social media marketing tools have made their mark on the business world, and will certainly be of value to you.
Your social media marketing success will be consistent if you use advanced tools like Sprout Social. Such tools combine streamlining workflows with audience connection and strategy optimization.
All in all, don’t worry, and take your time to explore marketing tools that work with your business goals, budget, and team size, not against them. By focusing on this, you’ll improve your social media strategy and brand presence significantly.
FAQ
What is a social media marketing tool?
It helps businesses schedule posts, analyze social media performance, engage with audiences, and run campaigns across multiple platforms.
What are the 5 P's of social media marketing?
Product, price, place, promotion, and people. The five P’s guide social media marketers in crafting strategies that hook the right audience with the right message, while driving engagement and conversions.
What is the 5-5-5 rule on social media?
Liking five posts, commenting on five posts, spending five minutes per platform (where you’re active). This is designed to help boost engagement and build relationships without overwhelming the other side.
What are the 7 C's of social media marketing?
Typically, the 7 C’s of social media marketing are: content, consistency, conversation, community, creativity, conversion, and curation.
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